Category Archives: Country Life

“I don’t think our kids know what an apron is. The principle use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old-time apron’ that served so many purposes.

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

Here’s to making hay while the sun shines. And to those who work with their hands and hearts. And for our friends (and my sweet hubby) who toiled for three days in the intense summer heat to cut, bale, stack and haul 704 square bales–about 30,000 lbs.–of big, beautiful, healthy grass. So thankful for their labor these last few days…and feeling grateful to Mother Nature…and to the late Colonel ‘Red’ Tutwiler, who planned and built this special place nearly 50 years ago. We are merely its keepers for the time being and feel blessed to be so.

Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Whiche is to say. Take time whan time cometh, lest time steale away.

It’s one of our favorite times of the season, when a farmer from Chilton County, the “peach capital” of Alabama, drives upstate with a truckload of peaches and sets up shop in the town square. As soon as we see him, we make a mad dash for his truck to nab a basket of these beauties, because we now know they’ll be gone quick!